Best of
Gender-And-Sexuality

1994

Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World 1890-1940


George Chauncey - 1994
    Drawing on a rich trove of diaries, legal records, and other unpublished documents, George Chauncey constructs a fascinating portrait of a vibrant, cohesive gay world that is not supposed to have existed. Called "monumental" (Washington Post), "unassailable" (Boston Globe), "brilliant" (The Nation), and "a first-rate book of history" (The New York Times), Gay New Yorkforever changed how we think about the history of gay life in New York City, and beyond.

I, Pierre Seel, Deported Homosexual: A Memoir of Nazi Terror


Pierre Seel - 1994
    He managed to survive the war, spending most of it as cannon fodder on the Russian front. Available for the first time in English, this account of Seel's experiences provides an invaluable contribution to the literature of the Holocaust.

My Words to Victor Frankenstein above the Village of Chamounix: Performing Transgender Rage


Susan Stryker - 1994
    

Good Vibrations Guide to Sex: The Most Complete Sex Manual Ever Written


Cathy Winks - 1994
    For ALL readers--women and men, heterosexual or lesbian, gay, or bisexual--this candid, upbeat guide offers expert advice on all aspects of sexuality:• How to talk about sex and keep your relationships sizzling• Orgasms--G-spot, female ejaculation, and multiple orgasms for both men and women• "If you want the job done right, do it yourself"--Expanded section on masturbation• NEW! Sex Over a Lifetime--Growing up, coming out, pregnancy, parenting, midlife cycles, and aging• NEW! Teens Sexual Bill of Rights• Real stories--Hundreds of real people talk about real sex• NEW! Dealing with disability, depression and other medical issues• Fantasy--Favorite themes, games, and power play• Comprehensive guide to erotica....in print, on screen, and on the internet• NEW! Latest sex toy innovations from cyberskin to microchips• Complete guide to vibrators, dildos, lubricants, and other sex gear, and how to introduce sex toys into your sexual repertoirr

Food for Our Grandmothers: Writings by Arab-American and Arab-Canadian Feminists


Joanna Kadi - 1994
    While anti-Arab racism depicts Arab women as veiled, passive victims living in hopelessly sexist communities, Food for our Grandmothers analyzes and challenges these innacurate and distorted views.

Created Equal: Why Gay Rights Matter to America


Michael Nava - 1994
    Beginning with an examination of the determined assault on gay issues by the religious right, the authors show how this sectarian movement to legislate private religious morality into law undermines the purpose of American constitutional government: the protection of the individual's right to determine how best to live his or her life. The book starts from the premise that gay and lesbians are, first and foremost, American citizens, and then looks to what rights belong to every individual American citizen, arguing from the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Addressing their argument to the great majority of their fellow Americans, Dawidoff and Nava emphasize that what is at stake is not the fate of the gay community, but the future of constitutional principle and the rights of free individuals in American society.

Wooden Eyes: Nine Reflections on Distance


Carlo Ginzburg - 1994
    In nine linked essays, he addresses the question: "What is the exact distance that permits us to see things as they are?" To understand our world, suggests Ginzburg, it is necessary to find a balance between being so close to the object that our vision is warped by familiarity or so far from it that the distance becomes distorting.Opening with a reflection on the sense of feeling astray, of familiarization and defamiliarization, the author goes on to consider the concepts of perspective, representation, imagery, and myth. Arising from the theme of proximity is the recurring issue of the opposition between Jews and Christians--a topic Ginzburg explores with an impressive array of examples, from Latin translations of Greek and Hebrew scriptures to Pope John Paul II's recent apology to the Jews for antisemitism. Moving with equal acuity from Aristotle to Marcus Aurelius to Montaigne to Voltaire, touching on philosophy, history, philology, and ethics, and including examples from present-day popular culture, the book offers a new perspective on the universally relevant theme of distance.Carlo Ginzburg teaches at UCLA, where he is the Franklin D. Murphy Chair of Italian Renaissance Studies. His other books in English include The Cheese and the Worms, No Island Is an Island: Four Glances at English Literature in a World Perspective, Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches'Sabbath and The Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.

Neither Man Nor Beast: Feminism and the Defense of Animals


Carol J. Adams - 1994
    According to Adams, the patriarchal mind constructs both women and animals as other, and sees them only in terms of their usefulness. Insofar as women participate in meat-eating, Adams argued, they are complicit in their own oppression. Although most of the essays were previously published, they have been largely inaccessible and so the collection is welcome. Some of the essays are geared to sophisticated academic audiences; most presume at least some acquaintance with feminist theory, but even general readers with an interest in animal rights should be intrigued by Adams's work.

The Way of Passion: A Celebration of Rumi


Andrew Harvey - 1994
    The Way of Passion, a penetrating antidote to today's spiritual crises, presents Rumi's magnificent visions of spiritual surrender and mystical union.

A Woman's Unconscious Use of Her Body


Dinora Pines - 1994
    In this perceptive and engrossing book, an eminent psychoanalyst explores key moments of women's lives and sexuality, examining how their unconscious minds are expressed through their bodies and, conversely, how their body experiences impinge upon their minds. Drawing on numerous examples from her clinical practice, Dinora Pines tells vivid stories of how young, pregnant women learn to integrate reality with unconscious fantasies, hopes, and daydreams; how women cope with the psychological antecedents and consequences of miscarriage, abortion, and infertility; and how older women adjust to the end of fertility and to old age, with the attendant issues of loss. Pines concludes by discussing her work with Holocaust survivors and children of survivors who unconsciously somatize their emotional distress about the horrors of the war and postwar years. Throughout she enables us to see how the analytic encounter can reveal and relate the secrets of the mind and body and provide a space for thought and change.

The Metamorphosis of Baubo: Myths of Woman's Sexual Energy


Winifred Milius Lubell - 1994
    Lubell's artistic and literary sources support the argument that from the earliest moments of civilization, humans have respected and revered female sexual energy, graphically symbolized in the vulva, as an indispensable force in the balance of nature. Over the ages, the images of Baubo and her sisters assumed deviant and disturbing forms, but the basic lines of her legend and its visual manifestations were not completely obscured. Nor, as this book will show, has Baubo's essential power been destroyed even in our own age.

My American History: Lesbian and Gay Life During the Reagan/Bush Years


Sarah Schulman - 1994
    Also included is the Lesbian Avengers Handbook.

The Poetics of Mind: Figurative Thought, Language, and Understanding


Raymond W. Gibbs Jr. - 1994
    The author overturns the traditional perspective by showing how figurative aspects of language reveal the poetic structure of mind. Ideas and research from psychology, linguistics, philosophy, anthropology, and literary theory are used to establish important links between the poetic structure of thought and everyday use of language. The Poetics of Mind evaluates current philosophical, linguistic, and literary theories of figurative language and relates the empirical work on figurative language understanding to the broader issues concerning the nature of everyday thought and reasoning.

A Queer Reader


Patrick Higgins - 1994
    Arranging entries chronologically and drawing on sources from the Satyricon to Gay News, from Michelangelo&squo;s sonnets to a speech in the House of Lords, from sexually explicit graffiti found in Pompeii to a Playboy interview with David Bowie, Patrick Higgins uses novels, biographies, autobiographies, histories, and ephemera to present gay history as never before.